Nintendo Renamed This Super Mario Bros. Movie Character, Possibly To Avoid Racism

Foreman Spike’s name was changed from ‘Blackie’ in Japan for the theatrical release

April 20, 2023

The official Nintendo account just tweeted that, in Japan, the foreman character in the NES game Wrecking Crew will be renamed from “Blackie” to “Spike” in games and The Super Mario Bros. movie. This change was already made in the U.S. and EU versions of the original game, likely because Spike’s original Japanese name could be read as a racial slur.

“The name of the character Blackie, who appears in the Family Computer software Wrecking Crew, will be changed to Spike, which is the same as the name in Europe and the United States,” reads a translation of the tweet posted in Japanese by VGC.

https://kotaku.com/super-mario-bros-...rew-1850358115